Category Archives: Technology

Phones nowadays are not simply the modes of communication anymore, they’re compact and sophisticated computers. The world has gone digital, and most children growing up today have no sense of what it is like to live without being connected. The concept of being offline is essentially a punishment, and the age at which youngsters start using these devices is gradually decreasing. Despite the ubiquity of this technology, though, we still don’t know some of the ramifications about this cultural evolution, because the research, let alone the technology itself, is so new. But we are learning more about how our psychology is being affected by phones, and here is a list of ten of the most surprising changes.

When it comes to studying, time is a major issue. For students with a high volume of information to study, cramming is sometimes required. For example, medical students don’t have the luxury of time to study one subject and absolutely nail it, because they have eight other subjects they’re simultaneously being tested on. The real secret to studying, however, is that the quantity of time spent is not nearly as important as the quality of it. If you ever wondered whether or not typing your notes can stack up to writing them by hand, let this be a lesson to you.

A patent is a form of intellectual property that can be granted with the presupposition that an invention for public consumption will come out of it later. Parents are good because it allows “the little guy” the time to make his or her invention without worrying about some giant corporation stealing the idea and making it themselves. If a giant corporation does steal the idea, then they must pay this little guy money, which may make the idea theft not worth it in the end. However, what happens when patents for every minuscule idea are granted to people who don’t even have any desire to make something from them? As people have been saying for years, we get the stifling of innovation.

I often ask questions in my article titles, but the question “are we responsible for climate change?” is simply unnecessary. From the overwhelming evidence, we know the answer to this question; and the answer is “YES!” This is good news because we may have the power to change things, but bad news because we aren’t doing nearly enough, and we may pass the point of no return within the next few decades. Furthermore, with so many people fighting to argue against what almost all climatologists are saying, most people aren’t even trying to do something about it.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. -George Orwell

If evolution is such an incontrovertible “theory,” then why haven’t we found the “missing link” yet? A compelling question – if not boldly ignorant. In fact, creationists ask this question all the time, falsely asserting that there is a lack of evidence to support evolution. This article is going to look at why we don’t have all the information we want on the fossil record, and what the whole question of a “missing link” really means.

Every year, the James Randi Educational Foundation gives awards to recognize the special few uncritical thinkers who do more to peddle pseudoscience and damage the public in ways that only celebrities could. Below are five “winners” of various categories whose success in nonsense have given actual science communicators like myself a greater challenge – not only to inform the general public of the way things are, but to do so while battle the faulty preconceptions caused the non-scientific thoughts and beliefs caused by such purveyors.

Online social networks has become an interesting platform for research, and hundreds if not thousands of studies around the world are investigating how we interact with others online. This article looks into recent studies that analyzed data regarding differences in age, culture, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Gender Differences

Researchers from the Santa Fe Institute used a multiplayer game “Pardus” to analyze social networks. Online video games have become increasingly seen as a gold mine of data on social interactions in recent years, and, as it turns out, many of the same gender differences seen in the real world were observed in the social networks in Pardus.

A new study has just come out which reveals something about the relationship between technology and our social lives. At no time in history have we been so technologically connected to one another. We can get and stay in contact with people at any hour of the day from virtually anywhere on the planet. The reason I’m saying this is because I don’t want you to be too shocked when I tell you the percentage of teenage girls are meeting people offline.

It’s official – Facebook wins. The American-based company struggled to make an impact in Japan at first, but now it seems as though Japan has warmed up to Facebook. Their only real competition was Mixi – the MySpace of Japan (which came out before Facebook) – and Twitter. They both had a good run, but it seems that the island has spoken, and Facebook won’t be surpassed by either of them.

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About Skeptikai

Skeptikai defends science and exposes pseudoscience. Living in Japan also allows for an interesting opportunity to discuss fascinating stories that go unnoticed elsewhere. Psychological phenomena and intriguing cases from around the globe are also regularly highlighted.

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